Health as a Complex Adaptive System: a new dimension of patient care in internal medicine and general practice

This paper explores the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of a new concept of health. Investigations into the nature of health have led to a new definition that explains health as a complex adaptive system (CAS) and is based on five components (a-e). Humans like all biological creatures must satisfactorily respond to (a) the demands of life. For this purpose they need (b) a biologically given potential (BGP) and (c) a personally acquired potential (PAP). These properties of individuals are embedded within (d) social and (e) environmental determinants of health. Between these five components of health there are 10 complex interactions that justify health to be viewed as a CAS. In each patient, the current state of his health as a CAS evolved from the past, will move forward to a new future, and has to be analyzed and treated as an autonomous whole. A diagnostic procedure is suggested as follows: together with the patient, the five components and 10 complex interactions are assessed. This may help the patient to better understand his situation and to recognize possible next steps that may be useful for him to evolve toward more health by himself. In this process mutual trust in the patient-physician interaction is critical. The described approach offers new possibilities to help patients to improve their health. Eckhart G. Hahn ( ) Corresponding author: [email protected] Bircher J and Hahn EG. How to cite this article: Health as a Complex Adaptive System: a new dimension of patient care in internal 2016, :1672 (doi: medicine and general practice [version 1; referees: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations] F1000Research 5 ) 10.12688/f1000research.9042.1 © 2016 Bircher J and Hahn EG. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Licence The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work. Grant information: Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. 12 Jul 2016, :1672 (doi: ) First published: 5 10.12688/f1000research.9042.1 1